With the rise of Twitter, Vimeo, blogs, and the ever-present Facebook, more and more clients are seeking advice about Defamation & Slander claims. Defamation arises from a printed statement. Slander is a verbal statement. Both are civil claims that may result in the payment of money to compensate for damages suffered.
To be defamatory, a statement must be 1) published to a third person and, 2) the statement must be about the person complaining (the plaintiff) and, 3) the statement must sufficiently identify the plaintiff and, 4) the statement must be false, and, 5) have caused damage to the plaintiff’s reputation. Defenses to defamation include: truth; consent; and privilege (aka, remarks by politicians in their official capacity).
Libel is a defamatory statement recorded in writing or in some other permanent recorded form (video, for example). Libel can be defamatory on its face (libel per se), as in “my spouse is addicted to heroin and meth and was fired from six jobs and had sex with the family Doberman.” A statement can also be defamatory if a published statement, not defamatory on its face, but when considered together with innuendo and normal explanatory circumstances becomes false, injurious, and damaging. Such a statement might be something like, “my spouse and Ray Rice have a lot in common.” This category of defamation is called “libel per quod” and requires an additional element of proving there has been an injury to reputation (“special damages”). In North Carolina, there is a defamatory middle-ground, where a statement is susceptible of two meanings, one defamatory and the other not, but a reasonable reader would interpret the statement in the defamatory sense.
Defamatory statements can be verbal. This is Slander. If a defamatory spoken statement is about a person’s business or profession; or alleges a person has a foul or loathsome disease; or alleges a person is guilty of a crime of moral turpitude (dishonesty; behavior contrary to community moral standards; depraved behavior), such statements can be considered slander per se and the requirement of proving damage to reputation is presumed. Other types of statements may be slanderous but if a statement does not fall within one of these 3 categories, it requires a proof of injury to reputation.
#defamation is a trend. Courtney Love won her Twitter lawsuit, and in July 2015, actor James Woods sued a Twitter user for $10 million because @AbeListed said Mr. Woods was a “cocaine addict.” http://time.com/3979733/james-woods-cocaine-twitter-troll-lawsuit.
While celebrities have a “brand” to protect, spouses have an image to protect and a reputation to guard which can be tattered by malicious tweets, posts, and videos.
To be defamatory, a statement must be 1) published to a third person and, 2) the statement must be about the person complaining (the plaintiff) and, 3) the statement must sufficiently identify the plaintiff and, 4) the statement must be false, and, 5) have caused damage to the plaintiff’s reputation. Defenses to defamation include: truth; consent; and privilege (aka, remarks by politicians in their official capacity).
Libel is a defamatory statement recorded in writing or in some other permanent recorded form (video, for example). Libel can be defamatory on its face (libel per se), as in “my spouse is addicted to heroin and meth and was fired from six jobs and had sex with the family Doberman.” A statement can also be defamatory if a published statement, not defamatory on its face, but when considered together with innuendo and normal explanatory circumstances becomes false, injurious, and damaging. Such a statement might be something like, “my spouse and Ray Rice have a lot in common.” This category of defamation is called “libel per quod” and requires an additional element of proving there has been an injury to reputation (“special damages”). In North Carolina, there is a defamatory middle-ground, where a statement is susceptible of two meanings, one defamatory and the other not, but a reasonable reader would interpret the statement in the defamatory sense.
Defamatory statements can be verbal. This is Slander. If a defamatory spoken statement is about a person’s business or profession; or alleges a person has a foul or loathsome disease; or alleges a person is guilty of a crime of moral turpitude (dishonesty; behavior contrary to community moral standards; depraved behavior), such statements can be considered slander per se and the requirement of proving damage to reputation is presumed. Other types of statements may be slanderous but if a statement does not fall within one of these 3 categories, it requires a proof of injury to reputation.
#defamation is a trend. Courtney Love won her Twitter lawsuit, and in July 2015, actor James Woods sued a Twitter user for $10 million because @AbeListed said Mr. Woods was a “cocaine addict.” http://time.com/3979733/james-woods-cocaine-twitter-troll-lawsuit.
While celebrities have a “brand” to protect, spouses have an image to protect and a reputation to guard which can be tattered by malicious tweets, posts, and videos.